 Welcome
This newsletter compiles the most up-to-date information concerning what EPPs need to know to best support their faculty/instructors, staff, and candidates. Please thoroughly read all the sections for reminders, upcoming events, To Dos, and FAQs.
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Educator Preparation Program Listserv Registration
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Topic
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Description
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Event Date & Time
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Bilingual Education Spanish Supplemental (TX165) Framework Overview Webinar
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The 165 Bilingual Education Spanish Supplemental EC-12 Framework Overview Webinar will guide programs through an overview of the updated Bilingual Education Spanish Supplemental EC-12 exam framework, and closely examine shifts to the exam format, requirements, and timeline.
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Thursday, August 21, 2025,
10:00 am - 12:30 pm CST via Zoom
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Topic
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Action Item
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Due Date
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Texas Test of Educator Proficiency (T-TEP) Stakeholder Advisory Committee Application
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Application period is now open and will close EOD Monday, September 15, 2025
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EOD Monday,
September 15, 2025
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Updates related to Educator Preparation Program Management
Reminder: Special Education Specialist EC-12 Certificate Via EPP Program Amendment
If your EPP is approved to offer the Special Education EC-12 or Special Education Supplemental certificate, and you have not yet requested the amendment to add the Special Education Specialist EC-12 certificate and exam 186 to your inventory per 19 TAC § 228.17(a-b), please complete and submit the Application Request for SBEC Approved EPPs. The Special Education EC-12 exam 161 and Special Education Supplemental exam 163 will no longer be available for testing after 8/31/2025, and your EPP will want to have the new Special Education Specialist EC-12 certificate and exam 186 in your certificate inventory for candidates in your EPP by 9/1/2025. There is no fee to add the certificate. If you have questions about adding the new certificate via the amendment process, or questions about the exam, please submit a Help Desk ticket to the Preparation Programs Help Desk, and we will be happy to assist you.
Countdown to ASEP Reporting 2024-2025
To assist EPPs with completing ASEP Reporting with ease, we have developed weekly reminders for those EPP staff working on ASEP Reporting. Each week, you will receive weekly reminders in this Newsletter that include timely tasks that will lead to successful completion of data reporting by September 15. Please remember that the 2024-2025 Technical Manual published on the Program Provider Resources page on the TEA website is a wonderful “how to” resource for using the various functions needed for reporting in ECOS and contains some useful tips for problem solving, if needed.
New: Week 5 ASEP Task Reminders 8/11-15/2025: Create Clinical Experience Records
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Verify that each candidate who completed any part of a clinical experience (clinical teaching, internship, or practicum) in 2024-2025 has a Clinical Experience Record.
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Ensure that all cooperating teachers, mentor teachers, and site supervisors are entered to create the Clinical Experience Record.
Note: You can download the Clinical Experience Records from ECOS into a spreadsheet to assist with reviewing and verifying your data. Be sure to review the 2024-2025 Technical Manual on the Program Provider Resources page if you need assistance with downloading records from ECOS.
Reminder: Week 4 ASEP Task Reminders 8/4-8/2025: Update the Finisher Records List.
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Verify that all 2024-2025 finishers are correctly listed on the Finisher Record List (FRL) with a status of “Finisher” (F). If a finisher is on the FRL for certificate categories they are not finishing, you must remove those certificate categories from the list for the candidate.
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If candidates left your EPP without finishing requirements during the year 2024-2025, be sure that you have removed them from your Finisher Records List (and that you have removed their test approvals). You must update the record to “removed” in this reporting year. Once ASEP closes, you will not be able to make any changes to the FRL.
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Additionally, remember to review the candidates from your mid-year data set that have been enrolled for five or more years and remove any from your 2024-2025 list that are no longer actively enrolled. This data was provided to you in your Sharefile folder in April 2025.
Note: Candidates who are removed will need to apply and be admitted if they want to work with the EPP in the future.
Note: Candidates that are removed will need to apply and be admitted if they want to work with the EPP in the future.
Reminder: Week 3 ASEP Tasks 7/28-8/1/2025-Complete all Admission Reporting
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Verify that each candidate admitted 9/1/2024-8/31/2025 has an accurate admission record. Verify all required admission data has been included in the record. If you need to update a record, you can do so manually or by bulk upload. Instructions are included in the 2024-2025 Technical Manual located on the Program Provider Resources page of the TEA website.
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EPPs can view their admissions in ECOS. Additionally, you can download admission data in ECOS into a spreadsheet to help verify the admission data that has been reported to date. To do so, go to ASEP > Maintain Admissions in your ECOS Entities greenscreen. Select 2024-25 Reporting Year and click the green Search button. You will see all candidates admitted for 2024-2025. At the bottom of the page, you will see “Click Here to download the data in comma delimited format (Excel sheet). Remember: Admission records for candidates admitted in 2024-2025 cannot be created after 8/31/2025 except for candidates admitted in the last week of August beginning August 25, 2025. Those records can be entered until ECOS locks the ASEP reporting year on 9/15/2025 but should be entered within seven days of the date of formal or contingency admission per 19 TAC §227.17 or 19 TAC §227.15, respectively. This means that for all candidates admitted between 9/1/2024 and 8/25/2025, the deadline for ensuring that their admission records are complete and correct is 8/31/2025.
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Be sure to review the 2024-2025 Technical Manual on the Program Provider Resources page. It is located under Forms and Documents. This is a helpful resource as it provides step-by-step instructions for completing admission reporting.
Reminder: Week 2 ASEP Tasks 7/21-25/2025:
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Ensure that TEA has your updated EPP Contact Information.
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Each EPP should have one Legal Authority or, for an EPP at a school district or Education Service Center, a Primary Contact, and at least one Backup Legal Authority. If you have recently had a change in these staff, please submit a Help Desk ticket to the Preparation Programs tile, and we will send you the template so you can request the changes to be made.
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Each EPP must have a Primary Title II Pearson and Title II IPRC contact and should have a Secondary contact for each, if possible. Ensure TEA has these current contacts. The following organizations must also have current contact information for your Title II contacts:
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Make sure that the following contacts are correct (your assigned TEA specialist can provide you a list of contacts that we have on file for your EPP):
- Your LBB contact if you are a college or university.
- The staff that manages your data.
To verify and/or update contacts with TEA, please submit a Help Desk ticket to the Preparation Programs tile.
Reminder: Week 1 ASEP Tasks 7/14-18/2025:
1. Know your assigned Education Specialist. This is the TEA staff member that you will need to reach out to when you have questions about ASEP Reporting. The EPP Education Specialist Assignments list is published on the Program Provider Resources page under Forms and Documents. Your Education Specialist is one of five staff members:
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2. Become familiar with the Help Desk which EPPs should use for all questions related to ASEP Reporting. Your Education Specialist will address your EPP’s questions in the Help Desk. We are in the Help Desk under the Educator Testing and Preparation Programs tile. |
3. Review the 2024-2025 Technical Manual on the Program Provider Resources page. It is located under Forms and Documents. This is a helpful resource as it provides useful information needed to complete ASEP Reporting.
4. Review your ASEP reporting processes from 2023-2024. We recommend that you review internal documents, correspondence with your Education Specialist, and any place where you encountered difficulties. Particularly if your EPP encountered challenges with Observation reporting or was subject to an informal review, we encourage you to review your processes and reach out to your assigned Education Specialist early and proactively seek support.
5. Register for the ASEP Reporting 2024-2025 webinar on Tuesday, August 5, 2025, at 10 AM CST. The webinar will provide useful information and reminders about state reporting processes and tips to improve the reporting experience. Please find the link in the Upcoming Events section above.
Updates related to Educator Standards and Certification Testing
New: 185 Deafblind EC-12 and 186 Special Education Specialist EC-12 Exam Preparation Resources Available Now
Interactive Practice Tests are now available for the new 185 Deafblind EC-12 and 186 Special Education Specialist EC-12 launching in September 2025. More information can be found on the Texas Educator Certification Examination Program website.
In addition to these resources, the TEA Educator Testing website houses additional resources, including informational one-pagers, framework overview webinars, constructed response overview webinars, and other related resources.
New: Bilingual Education Spanish Supplemental (TX165) Framework Overview Webinar
The 165 Bilingual Education Spanish Supplemental EC-12 Framework Overview Webinar will guide programs through an overview of the updated Bilingual Education Spanish Supplemental EC-12 exam framework, closely examine shifts to the exam format, requirements, and timeline, and provide programs an opportunity to exchange resources and discuss course/curriculum problems of practice via Padlet. TEA staff will facilitate this webinar twice, once during each of the Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 semesters. Registration is now open for the Fall 2025 165 Bilingual Education Spanish Supplemental EC-12 Framework Overview Webinar scheduled for Thursday, August 21, 2025, from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm CST via Zoom.
Programs are encouraged to attend the webinar that best suits their availability. We strongly encourage those faculty or staff who will be responsible for supporting students or making programmatic changes to attend.
Reminder: Texas Test of Educator Proficiency (T-TEP) Stakeholder Advisory Committee Application Now Available
We are excited to announce the launch of the Texas Test of Educator Proficiency (T-TEP) Stakeholder Advisory Committee Application. Stakeholder engagement is critical to the development of T-TEP and Texas stakeholders will have a range of opportunities to provide feedback on the assessment. The T-TEP Stakeholder Advisory Committee (TSAC) is the first of those opportunities. TSAC members will attend virtual sessions and provide feedback on assessment materials, implementation resources, and policies throughout the development of T-TEP.
To ensure a pool of well-qualified applicants, TEA staff are seeking committee member applications from the SBEC, SBOE, professional organizations, educator preparation programs, teacher organizations, and other key stakeholders. The application period is now open and will close EOD Monday, September 15, 2025. Selected committee members will receive email notification no later than EOD Friday, October 3, 2025. The TSAC application can be accessed here.
Reminder: TX165 Bilingual Education Spanish Supplemental EC-12 Pilot Test Opportunity
Pearson is conducting pilot testing for the new 165 Bilingual Education Spanish Supplemental exam (BESS). The new 165 BESS exam is scheduled to launch September 1, 2026, and will replace the current 164 Bilingual Education Supplemental and the Bilingual Target Language Proficiency Test (BTLPT) exams for Bilingual Spanish certificate-seeking candidates.
Pilot testing is intended to collect information on the performance of exam questions to be used at future exam administrations. Pilot testing will be available at Pearson VUE test centers throughout Texas from July 21, 2025, through August 17, 2025.
For information on eligibility, incentives, advantages of participating, scheduling, and registration for pilot tests, please visit the Pilot Testing website. Also, note that participation in a pilot test does not satisfy certification requirements or count against a candidate’s test attempts. Participants and educator preparation programs do not receive a Pass/Fail status or a score report. If you have questions or need further information, please contact the Texas Educator Certification Examination Program at estexas@pearson.com.
Updates related to Insight to Impact
Reminder: Invitation to Join the 2025-26 Data Governance Committee
The Texas Education Agency’s (TEA’s) Insight to Impact (I2I) Dashboards Data Governance Committee (DGC) is seeking new members to serve a two-year term beginning at the end of August!
The mission of the DGC is to establish a robust pathway for collecting, defining, synthesizing, and prioritizing the requests of I2I educator preparation program dashboard (EPP) users so that dashboards are strategically developed and updated to provide the most useful and usable data for program improvement. As a member, you will be privy to the latest updates and developments with the dashboards, while also serving as a liaison between TEA and the EPP field. In this role, TEA will lean on your expertise and insight so you can inform the updates, communications, training, scheduling and materials provided to the educator preparation program community related to the I2I dashboards.
The commitment of a DGC member is voluntary, but minimal, consisting of just one hour-long meeting a quarter with occasional prework. Please complete this sign-up form by Friday, August 15, 2025, if you are interested in serving on the committee.
We take this space to highlight questions that we have heard from .
Q: Can the host teacher also be the field supervisor?
A: No. Per 19 TAC §228.95(a)(4), the host teacher cannot be assigned to the candidate as a field supervisor.
Q: A clinical teacher is seeking Special Education certification and is assigned to a classroom with 2 teachers. The Special Education certified teacher provides classroom support, and the classroom teacher of record is either not certified in Special Education or is not certified as a Teacher. Do both teachers need to be certified? The classroom teacher of record is designing the lessons being taught.
A: The candidate completing clinical teaching must be under the supervision of a qualified cooperating teacher. 19 TAC §228.93 details the qualifications and duties of the cooperating teacher. 19 TAC §228.91(d) allows that if an individual who meets the certification category and/or experience criteria for a cooperating teacher is not available, the EPP and campus or district administrator shall collaborate to ensure an individual who most closely meets the criteria is assigned to the candidate, and the EPP must document the reason for selecting an individual that does not meet the criteria. If the candidate is completing the clinical experience in more than one classroom, there should be a qualified cooperating teacher in each.
Your best source for information and support at the TEA.
As an Educator Preparation Program, your main point of contact is your Education Specialist.
- View a list of EPPs and their assigned Education Specialist.
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For most efficient assistance, please submit a Help Desk ticket to Preparation Programs.
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EPPs may contact their assigned Education Specialist directly via phone or email.
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Candidates may call (512) 936-8400 and select Option #2: Educator Preparation and Certification for assistance.
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Updated: If EPPs (and candidates) would like to speak to a representative from another area(s), they may call (512) 936-8400 and select one of the options listed below.
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Option 2: Educator Preparation and Certification
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Option 3: Fingerprinting
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Option 6: Investigations
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